Learning Strategies

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Leadership

The Ed.D. program is intentionally designed to foster meaningful interaction and learning among students and faculty through an accommodative and flexible learning environment. The program integrates blended and fully online instructional delivery options, incorporating flipped learning sessions, intentional cohort design, strategic groupings, specialization aligned assignments, personalized doctoral support, integrated dissertation progress, and educational travel experiences. Together, these elements support collaborative learning, professional growth, and applied leadership development.

Accommodative Learning Environments

The program provides students the option to attend courses within a blended or fully online instructional delivery system. The blended option utilizes face-to-face, on-campus learning sessions (one Saturday per term); real-time, online video conferencing; and self-paced learning modules. This option is recommended for those students who live in close proximity to our Irvine campus. The fully online option is offered to students who are unable to travel to our campus and is delivered through real-time, synchronous learning sessions and 24/7 asynchronous modules.

Typical 7-Week Schedule for Ed.D. Courses
Week	Learning Modality	Day of Week
1	Blended: Face-to-face, On-campus Fully Online: Synchronous Conference Call	Blended: Saturday Fully Online: Saturday
2	Synchronous Conference Call	*Tuesday or Thursday Evening
3	Synchronous Conference Call	*Tuesday or Thursday Evening
4	Asynchronous Module	24/7
5	Synchronous Conference Call	*Tuesday or Thursday Evening
6	Synchronous Conference Call	*Tuesday or Thursday Evening
7	Synchronous Conference Call	*Tuesday or Thursday Evening (term ends on Friday of week 7)

*Cohorts meet on either Tuesday or Thursday evenings, depending on the program start date (March starts meet on Tuesdays and October starts meet on Thursdays). The schedule above applies to 9-10 terms of the 16-term program (approximately 1 ½ years of coursework and 1 ½ years of dissertation research/writing. Students will meet one-on-one with their Chairs during the dissertation track (approximately 6-7 terms of the program).

“Flipped” Learning Sessions

The program utilizes a “flipped” classroom, instructional approach to learning. As such, each student is expected to complete assignments (i.e., video lessons, assigned readings, critiques of scholarly articles, etc.) in preparation to engage in discussions or activities with fellow cohort members and their instructor during real-time learning sessions and discussion board posts. Learning session activities vary and promote a learner-centered model that engages students in active learning, highly differentiated instruction, collaboration, higher-order thinking and problem-solving.

Modified Cohort Membership and Strategic Groupings

Ed.D. Cohort Graduates, Spring 2020

Another strength of our doctoral program is to utilize a modified cohort membership model where students progress through the program together while making a few adjustments to student schedules for their respective Specialization. In effect, this intentional and strategic grouping of students promotes:

Interdisciplinary learning and innovative thinking.
Opportunities for students to support and learn from one another in groups.
Development of personal relationships and building of professional networks.
Raising expectations among groups that all students will complete the program successfully.

For core and research courses, groups are represented from each Specialization while groups for specialization courses consist exclusively of experienced professionals within the respective field of study. In effect, students who enroll in:

The same cohort launch and same Specialization will attend 10 courses together.
The same cohort launch but different Specialization will attend 7 courses together.

View Calendar & Course Sequence Learn more about Educational Trips

Individual Learning Plans (ILPs)

Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) are self-paced, learning plans that help doctoral students master progressively more advanced research concepts, methods and skills, as they move through the series of dissertation seminars. The ILP oral report provides each student the opportunity to share information with the instructor on what the student has learned and what next steps to take in the integrated dissertation track process.

These reports allow students to interact with their instructors as they progress through the series of dissertation seminars and advisement. The idea is that once students have achieved success, they exhibit increased confidence to tackle increasingly difficult research-related concepts, methods and skills. With mastery of each successive step, it will become much easier for students to undertake the challenges of conducting and completing dissertation research, which requires mastery of research methods and skills.

Research Benchmarks

Research benchmarks—which are integrated across the curriculum—ensure that students have an appropriate foundation to build upon concepts, theories, and research in preparation for dissertation research and for use in learning organizations.